Red Black Alliance Fascist Communist Cooperation 1919-1941

The Red-Black Alliance: Fascist-
Communist Cooperation (1919-1941)
By Nevin Gussack

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Despite the anti -communism of Benito Mussolini and his lieutenants, Italian Fascism
maintained a love-hate relationship with the Communist Party of Italy and the Soviet Union. On
the one hand, Fascism opposed the class struggle within the nation as prescribed by Marxism.
Yet, the Italian Fascists concurrently admired the militancy and revolutionary feelings of the
Communists and the USSR. Both Soviet Communism and Italian Fascism jointly opposed liberal
capitalism and governments limited with checks and balances. In the earliest period of the
development of Fascism, the program and actions of Mussolini and his comrades closely
approximated that of the Italian Communists and most revolutionary Socialists. In 1919,
Mussolini was dubbed the “ Lenin of Italy” for the Fascist occupation of factories on behalf of
their workers. One of the major heroes of Fascism was the poet and pilot Gabriele d’Annunzio.
D’Annunzio believed that Mussolini’s Fascism was a form of Latinized National Bolshevism. 1
At the end of 1922, Mussolini attempted to win over the Italian extreme left through fiery
speeches in the Chamber of Deputies. Mussolini offered the Italian Socialist Party (PSI)
cooperation in launching an anti -monarchical and anti-capitalist revolution. 2

Sometimes, the Fascists threatened to jointly destroy the liberal government of Italy in
cooperation with the communists. Both the Communists and the Fascists sought to destroy the
old regime and replace it with a centralized, authoritarian regime. Natural affinities would
develop between the seemingly opposing forces. Mussolini threatened the Socialist leader
Filippo Turati: “ Don 7 think you ’ll find it easy to destroy us. We will not shrink from allying
ourselves even with the communists in order to defend ourselves against you. ” Even in 1921,
Mussolini was prepared to work with the General Confederation of Labor (CGL), which was
controlled by the Socialists and Communists. The Fascist-tumed-Communist Delio Cantimori
recalled that “/ entered the Fascist Party in 1926. 1 was in a state of mental confusion and had
really no excuse for it. ..But I was convinced that Fascism had carried out the true Italian
revolution and was still doing so and that it should become a European revolution; and I
believed one had to work along these lines. ” 3 Based on such testimony, it was no surprise that in
the early 1920s, the largest body adherents of Fascism were ex-Communists. 4 A number of
former Socialists and Communists became Fascists. They included Nicola Bombacci, Robert
Farinacci, Cesare Rossi, Massimo Rocca, and Leandro Arpinati. 5

During the Fascist struggle for power, various Bolshevik leaders in Russia admired the
strong, authoritarian leadership qualities of Mussolini and regretted his defection from
revolutionary Marxism. According to Sarfatti, Lenin stated regretfully to a delegation of Italian
Socialists: “ Mussolini ? A great pity he is lost to us! He is a strong man, who would have led our

1 Walker, Bruce. “Fascists and Bolsheviks As Friends” Canada Free Press January 31, 2008

Accessed From: http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/1633

2 Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn. Leftism Revisited: From de Sade and Marx to Hitler and Pol Pot

(Regnery Gateway 1 990) Accessed From: http://mises.org/document/6581/Leftism-From-de-

Sade-and-Marx-to-Hitler-and-Marcuse

Urban, George R. Eurocommunism: Its Roots and Future in Italy and Elsewhere (Universe
Books, 1978) pages 160-161.

4 Pipes, Richard. Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
2011) page 264.

5 Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn. Leftism Revisited: From de Sade and Marx to Hitler and Pol Pot
(Regnery Gateway 1990) Accessed From: http://rnises.org/document/6581/Leftism-From-de-
Sade-and-Marx-to-Hitler-and-Marcuse

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party to victory. ” Trotsky spoke in the same vein: “...the only man who could have carried
through a revolution was Mussolini. ” 6

Mussolini also admired the Bolshevik penchant for centralized government and
propensity for violence. In 1921, Mussolini addressed the communists in the Chamber of
Deputies: “ Between us and the communists there are no political affinities but there are
intellectual ones. Like you ( communists ), we consider necessary a centralized unitary state
which imposes iron discipline and all persons, with this difference, that you reached this
conclusion by way of the concept of class, and we by the way of the concept of nation . ” In
February 1921, Mussolini noted: “I reject all forms of Bolshevism, but if I had to choose one it I
would choose the Bolshevism of Moscow and Lenin, for its giant, barbarian, universal scaled ’ 7

While the Soviets objected to the anti-Marxism of the Fascists, Moscow also admired the
revolutionary militancy and the harsh political methods of Mussolini’s followers. In an interview
with the 11 Corriere della Sera , Soviet writer Maxim Gorky expressed his admiration for the
Fascist rigged elections of 1924: “ From the governmental acts of Mussolini I have come to know
his energy and I admire him... ” Trotsky commented that “Mussolini carried out a revolution;
he ’s our best pupil. ” 8 At the Twelfth Communist Party of the Soviet Union Congress (1923),
Bukharin observed: “It is characteristic of Fascist methods of combat that they more than any
other party, have adopted and applied in practice the experiences of the Russian Revolution. If
they are considered from the formal point of view, i.e. from the point of view of the technique of
their political methods, then it is a full application of Bolshevik tactics and especially of Russian
Bolshevism in the sense of rapid concentration of forces and energetic action of a tightly
structured military organization in the sense of a particular system of committing one ’s forces,
mobilization, etc. and the pitiless destruction of the enemy whenever this is necessary and
demanded by the circumstances. ” 9

Lenin begged Italian Socialists not to wage a revolution, which paved the way for the
Fascists to take power. Lenin also sought to develop cordial relations with Fascist Italy. Lenin
transmitted the following secret instructions to Foreign Commissar Georgy Chicherin: “Start a
highly circumspect flirtation with Italy immediately. ” A senior Soviet diplomat named Vatslav
Vorovsky met with Mussolini in November 1922. At this meeting, Mussolini expressed his
confidence in the stability of the Bolshevik system. In November 1922, Yuri Steklov authored an
Izvestia article which praised the political pragmatism of Mussolini. A senior Comintern official
named Jules Humbert-Droz claimed that Mussolini’s motive for affording diplomatic recognition

6 Sarfatti, Margherita G. and Mussolini, Benito. The Life of Benito Mussolini (Kessinger
Publishing, LLC 2010) page 278.

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Pipes, Richard. Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
2011) page 252.

8 Urban, George R. Eurocommunism: Its Roots and Future in Italy and Elsewhere (Universe
Books, 1978) page 164.

9 Pipes, Richard. Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
2011) page 253.